In another building, the walls of several apartments were blown away. The area was surrounded by large piles of dirt, and it appeared that Israeli bulldozers were searching for buried explosives. A tank was parked in front of an empty school, where the Israeli flag was hanging on the outside walls. The sound of what appeared to be a drone was echoing in the sky, and gunfire could be heard from a distance.
The army says Hamas operates from inside the tunnels, and military officials have made destroying the tunnel system their main goal.
The tunnel is located near the destroyed homes and streets of the city, which became the focus of the Israeli ground attack. credit: AP
Brigadier General Dan Goldfuss, commander of the Army's 98th Division, described the tunnels as a “720-degree threat.”
“It's not 360 degrees, but it's 720 degrees, underground and above ground,” Goldfuss said.
Israel also believes that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar is hiding in a tunnel somewhere in Khan Yunis.
download
The besieged city, the second largest city in Gaza, has become the focus of the Israeli war on Hamas in recent weeks. During the journalists' tour, no civilians were present in the area. Israel ordered residents to evacuate parts of the city as its attack continued.
In the ferocious attack launched by Hamas and other militants on October 7, Hamas and other militants killed 1,200 people and took about 250 hostage, according to Israeli authorities.
The attack led to the Israeli attack. More than 23,000 Palestinians were killed, most of them women and children, according to the Ministry of Health in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. More than 85% of Gaza's population of 2.3 million people have been displaced, and vast areas of land have been leveled.
About 110 hostages were released. About 110 remain with their captors, along with the bodies of about 20 people killed in captivity, according to Israel. Israeli forces recovered several other bodies of prisoners, and the army mistakenly killed three hostages.
The plight of the hostages gripped Israelis, who see them as an enduring symbol of the state's failure to protect its citizens on October 7.
Israel has made the release of the hostages part of its war aims, along with crushing Hamas' military and governance capabilities.
AP
